A Long Way From Home
by Phoenixmirage
Summary: "Little one, if you have nowhere to go … then come with me." (Thinking back, he had been offered that three times really.) In which the encounter at the graveyard that should've been the beginning of the end is averted and a famous destiny is irrevocably twisted. Noah!Allen
1. Allen

**Disclaimer: **D. Gray Man is the property of Hoshino Katsura-sama.

* * *

_He was no stranger to human sorrows._

He knew what it was like to be cold. He knew what it was like to be hungry. Where most children his age would know naught but tenderness, he had seen humanity at its ugliest simply because he had been born with this withered corpse of an arm.

He learned early that human kindness is a fickle thing – how often had he been the recipient of whimful sympathies only to watch kindly hands retract in repulsion upon seeing the mark of the devil upon his body?

Yet somehow, he bore all abuse with patience: those scornful eyes, contemptuous words, and indulgent cruelties – surviving, as if that had been the only thing he was born to do. The days blend into weeks and the months become years – melding into the muddled sea of his consciousness. He learned early humans were judgmental creatures, and so, he learned early to hide that shameful part of his body.

Perhaps that was why, to protect himself, he developed a persona of strength. He learned to speak as roughly as the ones that tormented him on a daily basis. He learned to pretend a casual indifference to the world around him. As time passes, he almost comes to believe his own fabrications.

That is why, when the only person to show him a tiny measure of gentleness would be a surely mad clown, he knows why he was drawn so to the idea of a guardian.

_He was no stranger to human sorrows, but, he was a stranger to human attachments. _

The man that took him in had two sides to him: Mana the Dreamer and Mana the Clown. Mana the Clown was grounded in his work and this world but Mana the Dreamer was not. Mana the Clown moved from place to place for his occupation but Mana the Dreamer moved from place to place as if to avoid something _frightening_ in pursuit. Nevertheless, he had happily accepted his new role with this man: he became Mana the Dreamer's bedrock in the real world and he became Mana the Clown's performing companion.

He noticed how, as time passed, the man that took him in slowly gained a third side. This third side of Mana wasn't the distant recluse of the Dreamer Mana or possessed the quaint humor of the other Mana. This Mana was something else entirely: stern when he needed to be, gentle when he needed to be, to the tiny child at his side. He decided quickly he liked this Mana best and perhaps that was why whatever this Mana asked of him, he would try his very best to fulfill. This side of Mana, Mana the Father, was rare in appearance yet each time this Mana bade him "welcome home", the warmth in his small chest did not lie.

_Of course, the world was ugly and cruel and deemed that he was not to have Mana for long._

Yet, when that odd man who called himself the Millennium Earl approached him and proposed to bring Mana back, he does not understand why the refusal left his lips before his mind even had the time to properly comprehend his answer.

"Mana promised to be by my side forever."

However...

"It seems … it just wasn't meant to be."

Silence falls upon the graveyard.

"Little one, if you have nowhere to go ... then come with me."

The Earl's tone had become strange.


	2. Adam

**Disclaimer: **D. Gray Man is the property of Hoshino Katsura-sama.

* * *

35 years.

_Had it really been that long?_

Long enough for his empty house to slowly fill with laughing voices again, he supposed.

At first, he wanted for nothing. The desertion of his favorite had left scars deeper than the family's demise or any anger at the Ark's now stubborn anchor. The urge to simply stay in bed and cry had been compelling and he had done just that. How so the Black Order, his enemies, must've rejoiced at the lulling quiet... Had it even crossed him then to care.

Those days the Eldest never left his side, whispering emptily soothing words that they both knew were falsities at best. As if she _could _do elsewise when they only had each other left.

Yes, their family may reincarnate.

Yes, they may find a way to restore mobility to the Ark.

But... No, his Road was wrong as nothing would ever be the same again.

And he had remained thus, wallowing in his own grief and pain, until the first of the Family returned. Desire and Pleasure (_after all where there is Desire, Pleasure always followed close at the heel_) - a pair of brothers.

The irony was not lost upon him but rather than the circumstance it is seeing the younger that stole his breath away. Messy locks of slightly wavy hair. A lax, open smile...

_But the boy's hair should've been more red, the eyes silver and wider with playful mirth and his Neah always did have flawlessly smooth skin without taint or blemish._

"Tyki-pon."

And he closed his heart even as beckons the boy to follow by a pet name.

Though that changed nothing, recovering two to the clan had also restored a little of his former determination. One by one, he too began replenishing his army. Desire is always business when visiting (and he was fine with that) but with the other taking his Road along for appearances... Well. The Akuma preferred to stay out if his way unless called for and so it did come to be a little too quiet in his mansion.

He remembers of a flutter of gold wings and the hands that cradled it. And his mind decided, he fashions for himself a companion. The golem he named Lero and as little as he liked to admit it, Lero was a better conversationalist than his Road. But moreover, Lero makes no uncomfortable statements when presented with safeguarding an all too familiar sword.

_"Keep it well. It's important."_

When Desire complains Pleasure had come to prefer human company, he turns away both his ears and eyes. Why should he begrudge the other? (_Last time doing so hadn't ended so well now, had it?_) And he pretends not to see his Road frown as he pets Lero and coos loving words.

The next two to return to the family were brothers also and this time, he was not amused. Bonds had always been inseparable - but _insufferable_? The twins redefined headache and with that his house was never quiet again without periodic disturbances from porcelain shattering to the sounds of gunshots or some unfortunate calamity befalling the Akuma maids. The only times the boys ceased causing complete chaos was when he brandishes Lero in a fit of wrath but it was pointless for they wait for him to be out of earshot before dutifully resuming destroying his home again.

Thus his relief had been tangible when Lust had reappeared as serene as ever. She understood him in a way without words. Perhaps that was why this life, she preferred maintaining that feline form around him, noticing his courteous distance from the rest of the family with perhaps the exception of Road.

It was not until that Christmas when he wraps a bell about her neck and a little longer after that he has come to call her "Lulubell".

But then for a long time afterwards no other returned.

Road does not need to say a word for him to know why.

* * *

He hadn't wished for it to be this way.

Yet as the years passed him by, he found his sadness slowly poisoning into a deep grudge.

When the episodes happened, none of them daresay anything (as if they could, when even the unruly twins knew to stay silent in the face of _danger_).

Even so many years later, he still doesn't understand why.

_"I'll always be by your side."_

And perhaps he never would.

Road places a comforting hand on his back.

_"They'll return," she says. "They must."_

But when was the question, for they who had born the brunt of Neah's ability.

* * *

Fiddler returns to them, and at last, they feel the Curse's chains shattering.

A good doctor, lynched by the very patients he had unwittingly saved with his power. What terrible irony.

_He is almost in wonder too, how for so long that one had suppressed the terrible instinct._

As he watches the renewed Corrosion slaughter all the pastors that had wanted "death for witchcraft" for the first in a long time, he finds himself laughing truly.

* * *

Toraido. Mashima. Might.

_Wrath._

He has them all together again - hasn't he?

As he watches Skin Bolic destroy an Akuma servant with bare fists, his gaze cools.

_His Neah would never had thrown such an unsightly tantrum._

* * *

He knows what they say behind his back.

"The Earl doesn't truly like us, does he?"

Perhaps some of them may refute Desire - Lulubell or Road, maybe even Jasdero and Devit.

_"Neah, tell me what's wrong... We'll fix all of this!"_

_Even though most of the clan were already dead._

He feels a twinge of something... But what was the point of refuting the probable _truth_?

But he owes it to them, his current family, to at least bury such an unsightly truth in darkness...

* * *

**_He spreads the darkness with renewed vigor, impassionate._**

* * *

The little boy with the deadened eyes that was crouched before the grave was not a particularly special sight. He had seen this many times before: children who had lost mothers or fathers or perhaps even both.

It was easy enough to say the practiced lines of the script.

_But the child meets his eyes and even beneath the safety of the suit, he shivers._

"No...?"

He was surprised, to say the least. He hadn't ever been ... refused before. Did the boy perhaps not love the one that was lost as much as he had thought?

_"Mana promised to be by my side forever."_

How nostalgic. How _familiar_...

A promise, that was never meant to be.

_"It seems … it just wasn't meant to be."_

And of course, the cruel aftermath of understanding...

"Little one..."

What was he _doing_?

"...if you have nowhere to go ... then come with me."


	3. Bonds

**Disclaimer: **D. Gray Man is the property of Hoshino Katsura-sama.

* * *

They first meet him when they were just barely into their teens. Already they had been living on the streets for more than just a handful of years and he had been a passing noble dropping into Jasdero's bowl a handful of coins.

"Not enough, old man." He had said.

But instead of expected anger, the answer was calm.

"How much more, then?"

Offguard at such a reply and not knowing better, he settled for insisting the other give him an amount equal to his brother, at the very least.

"Very well, child."

He sulks and protests they weren't - or at least _he_ wasn't - but the faint smile on the old man's lips says such words were futile.

But then day by the day, the old man would always round that corner and he would always stop to place an equal amount of coin in their bowls. The old man would always be his solemn, quiet self and he... He doesn't know what brings him to speak of his brother's illness. But he does and the other listens - _of even their bastard parents' coordinated abandonment_ \- and like thus an arrangement came to be.

* * *

"Why us, old man?" He asked, one day.

He was certain there were plenty of other children starving on the London streets and his brother's condition, though rare, was an unfortunate reality also elsewhere...

But that doesn't mean he was going to leave behind the only relative he has, mind half-there or not.

(He'll just have to be the half that was always there, won't he?)

The old man smiles.

(That usual small, sad smile...)

And to this, he feels the faint stirring of irritation.

"Because it's something like salvation."

A thought passes at this answer - that _this man probably lost children before, too._

And the next time the old man calls them children, he finds he cannot form the words of protest.

* * *

It wasn't until the stigmata comes that he understands a bit better.

"Welcome back."

That suit before them was ever-smiling, but he thinks instead of a distant, solemn smile...

(A little part of him whispers those words were not meant for them either, at least not truly.)

But he had his brother, so should he really care?

* * *

There was something about becoming a Noah that made Jasdero incredibly happy. More so than the food and shelter or fine clothes... The words that usually did not come to his brother easily began flowing out, even if they were mostly barely comprehensible babblings.

The Eldest nods and pretends pretty understanding. On occasion, she condescends to play with Jasdero.

(He supposes that if his brother was truly happy then he too was content.)

* * *

The old man - no, the _Earl_ \- doesn't stop to listen to them anymore.

(And maybe...just a little, he wishes time could turn back to the streets of the Capital and a cool autumn afternoon.)

* * *

Perhaps it was petty of him, to break things for attention (encouraging Jasdero to follow his lead had been simple enough) but each time the Earl finally directs his attention to the both of them it certainly felt something like a victory.

_However... _Playing House with the suit was a lot easier than when the old man was truly himself.

(And for some reason, even as they took to frequently staying in that _other_ form, the knowledge makes him almost a little angry.)

* * *

He wasn't the first to notice when the Earl's tired features begin to hold gentleness.

But when that gentleness made even that distant gaze tender...

_He could not help but wonder what would make the other this happy._

* * *

It was a part of the mansion they never ventured to.

(This maisonette was the Earl's personal quarters, after all.)

It was hard enough to find a good time with the man's erratic schedule. But the protections placed on the apartment's door only made him all the more determined to find what was hidden beyond it.

(After all, he wasn't like the Eldest, content to just _leave things be_.)

He quickly learns alone, his ability was not enough. But with Jasdero's support...

"Adam, are you back already?"

* * *

Coppery-red hair and silver eyes. A child greets their sight on the other side of the door.

The eerie boy did not flinch even as they drew their weapons.

_The boy cocked his head lightly to the side -_

And a firm hand settles on his shoulder from behind.

Beside him, Jasdero squeals - an _alarming_ sound - and he slowly shifts his own head to meet the face of the Earl.

The Master was _not_ smiling.

Those golden eyes - that entire visage - beheld only complete outrage.

Their pistols drop, clattering upon the marble.

* * *

"Who are they?" The boy's soft voice disturbs what would've been an uncomfortable standstill.

Those fingers placed pressure - a furious tremble. To him, the _terror_ now clearly outweighed the threat of pain - _and,_

"...ne, Adam?"

He's holding his breath (he knows Jasdero is too) but the Master releases them finally...passing them by in silence.

_But they know better that lingering promise of punishment, of a lined crossed -_

The Earl draws the child into his arms.

The frosty words that followed chilled their blood.

"No one."

The little boy smiles, a snow-like smile. (As if that softened the blow by any measure.)

But like a balm, that did seem to soothe the Master's anger...

"Adam?" Says the child, tone sweet. "Maybe no one want a bedtime story, too...?"

A small smile touches the Earl's face.

"Perhaps, sweet..."

Cradling the child, the Master meets their eyes. A calculating, _foreign_ gaze.

Numbly, he pulls his brother out into the hall.

(A silent dismissal was far better than a dangerous one.)

_But, still..._

"Debbit?" His brother's hand fumbles on his sleeve, tone pleading.

As strong as the bond was between he and his brother -

(No, the Earl's with that child _eclipsed_ by far...)

"Tch."

\- it was still hard not to feel a little resentful.

"Adults are such bastards, really."


	4. Road

**Disclaimer: **D. Gray Man is the property of Hoshino Katsura-sama.

* * *

He waits until the arms about him relaxed.

He waits longer until the fingers in his hair lost their strength.

Then quietly, patiently, he extricates himself with care from the Earl's grasp.

A softly murmured name stills his movements.

But the other does not wake and slowly, he breathes again. With practiced grace, he slips lightly from the bed before with slight but hastened steps, he made his way for the door.

A faint smile touches his face as he confirmed indeed, for once, the grip of the gilded handle was not completely stubborn. To think that pair of surprising visitors tonight had created such an opportunity... And how with such care he had taken to hold the Earl's every attention afterwards.

His good hand twists. He reminds himself patience until the space was large enough for him to inch through. Slowly, surely he directs the swing. No disturbing creaks. _Good._ Just a little more now...

"...Ne...a..."

For a terrible moment, he believed that the other would stir.

But moments pass - _nothing_. Save the guilt that bubbled and broiled.

_No,_ he tells himself fiercely, quelling the feeling of indecision. He couldn't be hindered _now_, not when a chance like this was little likely to present itself again.

And steeling himself, he crosses.

"...don't...go..."

He shuts away the door and whimpered plea.

_It took more self-control to not just run after that._

* * *

The halls of the mansion were as quiet and empty as he remembers from the night he first arrived.

But it was different now. He knows these halls now, at least better than that eve near...

A year ago? _Two?_ How long had it been...?

_Really, time seemed to be quite the exception in the eerie estate,_ he muses as he makes his way to the Mezzanine. But perhaps, had he not lost his freedom so after mere weeks-

"Where are you going?"

He halts mid-step. A familiar voice ... most unwelcome now, of all times.

He relaxes his posture.

_Natural, look natural._

"Allen."

And he turns to face her.

"Road." He greets ambivalently.

She observes him for a long moment, purple eyes unreadable.

And at length, she sighs.

"It's futile." She says, her tone quiet. It was almost unusual to see her so serious.

He feels his brows furrowing at _that_.

"What do you mean?" He demands.

"You could run to the ends of the world," she replies. "But he'll destroy every path to find his Neah."

"But I am not Neah." He retorts, a faint smile passing upon his lips. "Nor am I his Allen, either. Just a nameless boy he met."

She frowns at that.

"For him, you became Allen. So why the change now?"

How ... could she ask of him that?

"This ... is _different_." He insists.

To steal poor, demented _lost_ Mana's precious person's _place_?

How great his initial joy, his confusion, had been when he came face-to-face with the very proof that the doctors of the hospital were wrong. Mana had not passed away in cataconic sleep. Here the man who had come to be father was, whole - memory battered again, yes, living by a different name, yes, but whole and as well as the other could possibly be.

But he in foolish, selfish hope had tried then to make Mana remember their time together - even though that journey only began after the _accident_: he had been the reason why Mana forgot his little brother in the first place. He learns, too, all in good time the one searched for, Neah, was dead - _**gone**_ \- and Mana had been running from his own demons and the memory of a brother long dead.

_Poor Mana._ He wonders what it would be like to hate one's self so. Such a foreign concept it was to him, having learned early the only reliable person can be one's own self.

And tried as he had, Mana never quite became his Mana again. Granted, there were little bits and pieces here and there... The moments of tenderness, the patience ... but deny as he had wished to - this was a different _person_. Even their secret - the shared code, the _song_ \- became instead shackling links of a chain.

Showing that had been a terrible mistake. It was the first time the other called him 'Neah', sobbing and clinging and after that he would never be free again. Gone would be the odd evening jobs - the other's only concern was now to ensure _he_ was still here.

"You could stay." Her tone was almost pleading. "You have everything you could need."

He shakes his head slowly, once.

It had never been about what he wanted.

"When he forgot about Neah... I swore I would remember in his place. To help him find the brother he lost, make sure he stays out of trouble. Now... Like this, I can't. I stole his memories once, Road. It was an accident, but he forgot. And I-"

"We _found_ him." She interrupted. "It took a little while, but we found him. There was no harm done. Allen... _Think this over._ That person raised you - you found a father in him, isn't that right? And even now, he still is a father to you. This... What he is doing now, he would grow out of that. He talks, you know. Of introducing you to the family formally-"

"That song was Neah's."

Her violet eyes became troubled at that.

"Maybe even as far as back then..." His voice trailed, not completely wanting to acknowledge a terrible truth.

"Road." He says instead. "It's ... _misplaced_. Don't you understand? Everything _stopped_, while he swore to always keep walking - and _I'm_ keeping him there."

She does understand, he knows. Knows that because he loves that person - Mana, Adam, whatever the other calls himself now ... and that is the reason why he has to leave. So instead, he asks of her:

"Are you to be my prison guard, Road?"

As Ma-_Adam_ originally asked her to?

She shakes her head lightly - _no_.

"I'll help you." She promises. "But listen, Allen..."

Her tone becomes also a warning.

"If he finds you, you won't ever be able to leave again. And when that time comes, I will not be able to help you again."


	5. Demon

**Disclaimer: **D. Gray Man is the property of Hoshino Katsura-sama.

* * *

_"This is as far as I can go with you."_

_"I understand."_

And he walks and walks - long past even when it felt like his shoes were cutting the skin of his feet.

_But he was lucky to even have shoes,_ he considers. Road's aid may have been on a whim, but unexpected as it had come, he quickly realizes it had been sorely welcome. Where otherwise he would have no opportunity to bring anything, and would've traveled in bedclothes until God knows when, she had instead fetched for him a clean set of clothing and shoes - even a light jacket, a water canteen and some bread stolen from the kitchens.

_"As you don't know when your next meal is." She had said, with an almost laugh. __A wistful pause, and then:_

_"Changed your mind yet?"_

He had worse. And he tells her so, despite feeling a little guilty at her almost hopeful tone.

_For a moment, he could've sworn her eyes flashed angry_ _gold. But thankfully, she does not press on._

The most useful things she had brought him, were, of course a compass and hand-drawn map.

_"Father doesn't need those." She had said with a shrug. "Do you think you can make it to Chigwell?"_

Ten miles. It was long for a partial eve to cover - and certainly longer than the most he and Mana had travelled together in a few hours. But, he was determined to and...

_"I'll have to."_

_He is surprised when she smiles at that._

_"That's right... Keep walking."_

_Vaguely, he wonders just how much she was involved with all of this._

* * *

It was nearly daybreak when he stumbles into the town.

There was no exhilaration. No feeling of accomplishment. All he could feel was his endless _exhaustion_.

But there was to be no rest yet. He permits a long moment for his mind to override the stinging pain before slowly - _painfully_ \- he hobbles about in search for a sleeping place. Much of his search brought only disappointment, but, the dilapidated church at the end of town had a open door.

His eyes widening happily, he pushes until it was wide enough for him to creep in.

He claims a bench and exhaustion soon enough spills over his conscious will.

* * *

He wakes up bound to a chair.

"EHHH!?"

Stern hazel eyes - an unfamiliar woman in full uniform - stood before him.

"Speak!" Demands the officer. "What have you done with my partner? Just you wait, soon we will round up your companions-"

"_What_ are you talking about!" He wails. "I was just looking for a place to sleep!"

The officer's eyes - though still suspicious - softens a little at that.

"You..." She says hesitantly. "...really don't know...?"

"Know?" He repeats, almost in awe. "Know ... what? I know my back _hurts _\- officer, do you just go around arresting people with absolutely no evidence?"

She flushes at that. "Well, this ... _that's_-"

They were interrupted by the sounds of multiple explosions. And then a sharp cry came from downstairs.

"_Charles!_"

He watches her rush off.

_What. She was just going to leave him here?_

"Really?" He splutters, indignant.

But complaining was no use - he was going to get out. Nothing that officer could come up with would possibly be worse than what the bullies at the circus used to do to him for sport.

Several moments of struggle passed before the bindings loosened slightly. He squirms, and made sure to dig his fingers well into the knots. A hiss of pain - it wasn't as if he could use that paralyzed hand for the finer work, after all.

His patience was rewarded when the bindings finally fell.

He rubs his raw fingertips tenderly against his shirt muttering more grumbled curses.

* * *

_What sort of idiot rushes into danger?_

_Her._ His mind unhelpfully supplied. _And him._

He huffs - _no_, he was finding her only to let her know a piece of his mind.

She was standing in awed horror at the base of the stairs - staring at a crumbling pillar.

And he is in surprise too as he draws next to her - not at the gaping holes that he could've sworn wasn't there before embedded in the column - but at the body of an officer splayed against the structure, blood splattering like a horrible black crucifix.

A gasping groan came from the man.

_He's still alive._ He realizes.

Then black pentagrams swiftly sweeps over pale skin and as the flesh turns the color of charcoal -

_Danger! DANGER!_ His mind screams to him.

He pulls the officer along by the hand even as the body they left behind crumbled in a shower of dust and smoke.

He doesn't stop running until they were upstairs.

"That..." He gasped. "What was-"

He does not have the time to be shocked when she collapses in his arms.

"_Officer!_"

* * *

It wasn't difficult to hazard a guess which building in town was the police station. And it was even less surprising when they promptly arrested him.

_Formally, _this time.

"What I am saying is, Chief, I _don't_ know-" He repeats with irritation.

_What was he supposed to say? That the other officer was killed by cannons that somehow reduced the body to dust? _He'll end up institutionalized!

A shout from the next room told him the officer he rescued had awakened. Soon enough, within moments, she was pulled into the room.

"His name is Allen Walker." Grunts the Chief. "Age, unknown."

He jumps when the man's fist made angry contact with the table.

"_You did it, didn't you!?_"

"I _told you_ I didn't!" He protests. "I just brought the officer here!"

"It's weird you were in the Church in the first place-"

"I said I was a traveler looking for a place to pass the night!"

"_-and look at this hand!_" The Chief snatched up his left arm. "This red, it must be blood-"

Upon noticing the _texture_, the hands that were grappling his paralyzed arm promptly freezes.

Shock and disgust filled the Chief's features.

"What ... the hell? _What do you think you are pulling?_"

A shaky finger wagged before his face.

"Your body is a gift from your parents! Doesn't it hurt _burning a cross_ in your hand - you _damned_ psychopath!"

He chews on his lip, biting back a retort.

"Wait ... Chief..." Spoke up the female officer. "This boy was with me during the whole incident."

_That_ got the rotund man's attention, who promptly rounded on the officer.

* * *

"Sorry about that..." The officer - or Miss Moore Hesse, as he knows by now - apologizes to him as they were finally released.

"My ears are never going to be the same again." He moans.

"It's just frustrating for him." She said, along with a tiny, sad laugh. "...all these deaths ... but not a single clue."

"That _was_ strange." He mutters. "I didn't see any cannons."

"Of course not." She affirms. "We already searched that building many times."

"And yet people are still dying if they spend a evening there."

"Yes."

He stares at her.

"Why don't the town just tear this Church down?"

"We considered it." She says softly. "But no one could bring themselves to."

He listens.

"Two years ago, an incident befell the head pastor and his bride in this Church. Their wedding day ... it was supposed to be a happy event. But a loose screw in the chandelier... And just like that, everything was over."

"They both died?" He asks curiously.

"No." She answers. "The bride pushed her beloved out of the way. She lost her life ... but the pastor survived."

"She must have loved him very much."

"Yes." He could've sworn there were tears glistening in her eyes. "Very."

* * *

"If you have nowhere else to stay for the time being, you are more than welcome in my home."

"Are you sure?" He is hesitant. "Your Chief doesn't seem to trust me."

She laughs at that.

"He doesn't trust anyone. It's part of his occupation. And Allen... As you have said, there is no evidence."

He smiles a little at that.

"Then," he says. "As I do need to catch up on sleep, I can't politely refuse."

His stomach took that moment to make itself known.

Flushing, his arms instinctively wrap around his abdomen.

And she laughs again, more brilliantly this time.

"...why don't we take care of that problem first?"

* * *

She was generous, offering to treat him as an apology for the previous night. But years of having manners hammered into him taught him restraint. Granted, he was far from full when they finished breakfast at the pub ... but he was a little proud of biting back the want for more.

Especially when he learns that she had a crippled brother at home.

As she speaks comforting words to the ailing man, he realizes:

_The story she was telling earlier... _

"This person... Isn't he-"

"Yes, Allen. Pastor Mark is my brother. It was ... my sister, who passed away."

"I'm sorry." He murmurs.

"Don't be."

And he watches as the man mumbles nonsensical words about hunger.

* * *

She permits him to rest and he does not rouse until dinnertime.

"Let me help." He offers, reaching for the knife even as she refuses.

"You don't have to." She insists, pulling arm and bowl of untouched pears away.

Her brother wheels himself into the room, the grind of metal commanding their attentions.

The other was shaking.

"My ... stomach ..." Came the gasped words. "...**_star_**v_i_n_g_..."

In concern, Moore went to the other's side.

His eyes widen at the crippled pastor's next declaration:

"Let ... me ... KILL!"

He pulls her back just as in an explosion of flesh and metal, what was once Pastor Mark became a grotesque balloon of metal.

_Cannons!_ He thought.

"Down!" He snaps, the harshness of the word breaking her daze.

(He doesn't hesitate to shove her towards the ground too.)

Bullets soared past their heads, exploding the living room wall.

As smoke spilled everywhere from the crash of debris and the cold evening wind permeated, taking her hand, he pulls her along and flees.

**_He could've sworn a eerily familiar laugh followed them into the night._**

* * *

**A/N: **In my last D. Gray Man fic, Moore became a person who helped Allen at his worst - during his Noah transformation. Here I wanted her to have an effect on him too as the first good-natured real human he has met.

Apologies to the delay in the start of the real adventure, but it will be soon I promise.


End file.
